The situation “does not look very good” for the Sentinel 1-B satellite of the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation programme, confirmed European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Josef Aschbacher and Simonetta Cheli, head of ESA’s Earth observation programmes, at the end of the institution’s 306th Council meeting on Thursday 17 March.
The Director General said that the ESA services have carried out several investigations, but “to keep it very short, the situation does not look very good”.
“But we are not giving up hope yet”, he sought to reassure. He said that ESA was working to launch Sentinel 1-C as soon as possible. Sentinel 1-C should in fact be ready by October 2022, Simonetta Cheli said.
The latter detailed the situation. At present, there are 18 options to explain the anomaly that occurred last December (see EUROPE 12872/12). “We are trying to reactivate the power supply system, which is what seems to be related to the cause of the anomaly”, she explained.
Ms Cheli added that she was working with industry to replicate on the ground what happened in space. “This will take a few more weeks”, she said.
For the time being, the loss of data caused by the satellite’s failure is being made up for by non-European space missions, notably Canadian, Ms Cheli said.
She also welcomed the fact that the CO2M mission would continue, as well as all future missions, despite the British €750 million deficit (see EUROPE 12893/23).
The European Commission has made €29 million available, Ms Cheli told EUROPE. This sum, obtained through de-commitments, “does not have a specific colour, does not have a specific link with specific activity”, she added. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)